[Question] How to prevent pre-launch report play store bots from affecting firebase analytics?

[dhiraj]

[REQUIRED] Please fill in the following fields:

• Unity editor version: 2022.3.151f1
• Firebase Unity SDK version: 11.6.0
• Source you installed the SDK: .unitypackage (.unitypackage or Unity Package Manager)
• Problematic Firebase Component: Analytics (Auth, Database, etc.)
• Other Firebase Components in use: RemoteConfig (Auth, Database, etc.)
• Additional SDKs you are using: Admob (Facebook, AdMob, etc.)
• Platform you are using the Unity editor on: Mac (Mac, Windows, or Linux)
• Platform you are targeting: iOS and Android (iOS, Android, and/or desktop)
• Scripting Runtime: IL2CPP (Mono, and/or IL2CPP)
• Pre-built SDK from the website or open-source from this repo: Pre-built SDK

[REQUIRED] Please describe the question here:

I am following this publishing flow to send updates to the Android Play Store. I upload a new build to the Internal testing track and after testing that all's well, I'll promote it to Production. The problem that I'm seeing is that since every build is auto-tested by Play Store's Pre-Launch Report, it immediately brings on 5+ users on to my app which start sending analytics events. This is ending up inflating my analytics data unnecessarily. How can I eliminate this? I do want the automated testing, it helps me overall, but ideally I want zero impact from the bots on my Analytics tracking.

I tried making a checking function to look for "firebase.test.lab" in the system contentResolver, but testing this is super-hard because it requires me to make a test release every time and then wait for like an hour to let the bots finish hammering to get to the next sane test cycle. So far I've not been able to skip turning on the analytics, here's the function I'm trying to build:

        using (var actClass = new AndroidJavaClass("com.unity3d.player.UnityPlayer"))
        {
            var context = actClass.GetStatic<AndroidJavaObject>("currentActivity");
            if (context == null) {copOut(); return;}
            AndroidJavaClass system = new AndroidJavaClass("android.provider.Settings$Global");
            if (system == null) {copOut(); return;}
            string inTestLab = system.CallStatic<string>("getString", context.Call<AndroidJavaObject>("getContentResolver"), "firebase.test.lab");
            if (inTestLab == null) {copOut(); return;}
            Debug.Log($"In TestLab:{inTestLab}");
            FirebaseAnalytics.SetAnalyticsCollectionEnabled(inTestLab != "true");
        }

There must be a recommended way to do this, it affects all Unity Firebase developers, right? Please feedback / suggest, thanks!

[argzdev]

Hey @dhiraj, thanks for reaching out. From what I know, Google Analytics have an automatic bot filter applied which should automatically exclude bot events from your app. However, there are instances that these bots still get through the filter. That said, our SDK team do not have tools or visibility to tackle these types of questions regarding your data. The Google Analytics Help Center contains many articles that touch on how data is calculated and may help provide more insight why data may appear the way it does, so I'd recommend you start from there.

Aside from that, you can try the the support options below:

• Google Analytics 360 (360 partner agencies and direct clients only)
• Google Analytics clients with linked Google Ads accounts

For other questions, please reach out to the Google Analytics Help Community.

I'll go ahead and close this thread. Feel free to ask us to reopen this issue if you believe the issue is within the SDK. Thanks!